The Santa Clara, Calif., software company and shepherd of the Java
programming language added Mac OS X and x86-based Solaris platform support
to its developer tool, as well as its first internationalized versions in
Japanese and simplified Chinese.

Sun also added Java Developer Network portals in simplified Chinese and
Japanese, giving developers in the East access to downloads, tutorials and
how-to tips in their language.

"We're going after the Asian developer marketplace in a big way at this
point," said Jim Inscore, Sun JSC group product marketing manager. "We
recognize China as an emerging market where lots of developers want to get
up to speed on technologies like Java and [Java 2, Enterprise Edition
], so we view this as a way of enabling them to do that."

Inscore said efforts are under way with CD-ROM giveaways of its
software in India to get programmers to try it for application
development.

The JSC isn't designed to compete with Microsoft Visual Studio on the .NET framework or IBM's
competing Java tool WebSphere Studio Application Developer.

Though all three come with features like drag-and-drop design and database
queries, JSC targets the developer building Web applications for the
enterprise. Sun's Java Studio Enterprise is designed for networked
applications with J2EE, though JSC does support the J2EE standard. The
NetBeans IDE rounds out Sun's
developer tools and is designed for low-footprint applications.

This push is the latest in Sun's Asia/Pacific spread. In June, when the company revamped its pricing
strategy, it modeled 16 pre-tested reference architectures
based on Chinese-specific business models.

In November 2003, Sun won a contract
with China Standard Software Co., a government-backed technology company
consortium, to install at least 200 million copies of the Java Desktop
System (JDS) nationwide.

The JDS runs on a Linux-based system and includes open
source applications like Mozilla's Firefox browser and
Evolution e-mail client. It also includes Sun's StarOffice 7, the premium
version of the open source OpenOffice application suite of word processor,
spreadsheet and presentation apps.

The operating and language support of Sun's quarterly update process with JSC.
Each update, Inscore said, will include either visible or behind-the-scenes
user improvements on the platform.

The company is expected to roll out its next major release, code-named
Thresher, sometime next year. Early work is commencing now, with support
for one-button deployment on more application servers, support for Session
EJBs and integrated support for source code
management tools.

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